“These pieces — while exposing the creative resilience and 'up from the boots straps' mentality of Rust Belt residents — can be as problematic as the 'ruin porn' ones,” they write.

Why's this? From the post:

Many dispatches from the industrial north are written by writers who fly to report what they saw during a day or a weekend, and almost invariably, the memes get in the way, or more likely, were in the writer's head before she arrived. Looking around cities like Cleveland, it's easy to draw hasty conclusions, to either sentimentalize the old, gritty working class blocks now abandoned, or be all gobsmacked to find signs of modernity and life. The resulting picture looks too black and white: "this is where the good stuff is — the rebirth! — and this is where the bad stuff is — the ruin!" Truth is, the Rust Belt is a very gray place: it is both in ruins and reviving. It's a fascinating time and place for the region, particularly for urbanists. But the ruin and revival memes flatten out complexity.”

The competing "Ruin!" versus "Revival!" narratives “are mesofacts — broad, flexible yet significant beliefs about places or peoples,” Mr. Piiparinan and Ms. Trubek write. “Mesofacts influence perceptions, which drive behaviors, which affect how places are cared for, praised, derided, or left for dead. When we package the idea of a Rust Belt death and rebirth with superficial themes, people on the ground are left to clean up the mess.”

They conclude:

Urban journalism needs to allow for more ambiguity, as in the recent documentary “Detropia,” which narrates Detroit's hope and hopelessness in one uneasy if not inspiring movie. We need more gray-area approaches to the Rust Belt that are less pre-packaged, more uncertain, and not as "feel good" or "feel bad" as “the ruin” and "rebirth" memes.

Won't back down

President Barack Obama needs to be more like Sen. Sherrod Brown, at least when it comes to campaigning and debating.

That's the argument put forward by liberal Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, who writes that Sen. Brown's “uncompromising advocacy on behalf of workers, toughness on trade, and progressive policies on a broad range of other issues have allowed the Democrat to build a formidable organization across Ohio, and a large cadre of small donors.”

Mr. Dionne notes that he spoke with Sen. Brown a few days after President Obama's lackluster debate, and “the contrast between Brown's approach and the president's was striking — even though Brown, a loyal Obama supporter, did not bring it up himself. Brown is not the sort to let down his guard in a debate.”

From the column:

Indeed, his analysis of why Democrats were routed in 2010 combines a clear-eyed view of the condition of the country at the time — “There was no evidence by the 2010 elections that things were getting better” — with a belief that his party must always be prepared to make its case. Leading into 2010, he said, “we let them get away with too much.”

Sen. Brown has high expectations for Vice President Joe Biden in tonight's debate with Rep. Paul Ryan.

The Wisconsin Republication has “dressed up trickle-down economics and wrapped it in an Ayn Rand novel,” Sen. Brown says. The vice president, Sen. Brown adds, should highlight the GOP's desire to privatize both Medicare and Social Security.

“It's clear they want to go there,” Sen. Brown says.

Read a magazine, win at a game show

Need to convince your kid to read? Maybe this will provide him or her with some incentive.

Mental_floss, a growing national magazine with business operations in Geauga County, shares on its website an email it received from reader Erik Dresner about his experience on “Jeopardy!”

The correspondence is a bit long, but at its base, it comes down to this: A mental_floss story Mr. Dresner read on an airplane about the modern opera “Nixon in China” helped him correctly answer a Final Jeopardy question in the category of … Modern Opera. (Sometimes you just get lucky.)

His winnings? More than $22,000.

Mr. Dresner's email ends this way: “So thanks to you, mental_floss, I can forever call myself a “Jeopardy!” champion, even if it's just for one day. If I wasn't already planning on being a lifetime subscriber, that cemented it.”

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